The invention relates to a bed having an influence on snoring, said bed having a mattress base, which is designed to be tiltable at least around a longitudinal axis. The mattress base has essentially plane resting surface and is joined to a preferably electro-motorized tilting drive which is connected by means of a control to a power supply.
In the past many attempts were made, in various ways, to prevent the snoring of sleeping people since the sound caused thereby significantly disturbs any person sleeping in the same room where from time to time snoring can become so loud that even the sleeping person himself wakes up. If one wakes up the snorer, snoring stops, but his sleep has been interrupted. However, after going back to sleep, snoring starts again, often shortly afterwards. In most cases it has been realised that the snoring sounds do not occur if and as long as the person concerned rests on a side position. In order to force such side position, a device is known from German Auslegeschrift (application published after examination) 11 98 005 which consists of a padded board having the same length as the upper part of the body and which is hinged along the longitudinal axis. The board is equipped with a locking device which can lock the part that can be lifted up at an angle of between 60.degree. and 90.degree. . The device is equipped at both ends with loops through which one leg and one arm are put through so that the sleeping person is forced into the side position by the part that is lifted up. Irrespective of the non-yielding body support, restful sleep is not possible with such a device since the sleeping person is pinned in a side position and is not able to turn around. Due to the arm loop, no free movement, not even e.g. the support of the head by an arm, is possible in the side position. Another disadvantage of the known device is that due to the loop placed around the thigh and the shoulder, blood circulation can be restricted.
From U.S. Pat. No. 3,089,130 a device for mounting on a bed is known in which the head of the sleeper is put on a head support which can be tilted and is equipped with a vibrator. Sounds of snoring are picked up by a microphone and are fed as a control signal to a control which then activates the vibrator. By means of the vibrator the head of the sleeping person is shaken up and down so that the latter wakes up and snoring ceases. Such a device does indeed stop the snoring very effectively, but, to a large extent, is unhealthy since the sleep of the snorer is interrupted over and over again. From German Auslegeschrift 11 51 347 a similar device is known which, however, causes the head of the sleeping person, resting on a horizontally movable support, to be moved back and forth. Switching on the device again takes place by means of a microphone. With this device, only the head is turned to the side, regardless of the position of rest of the body, by a horizontal conveyor belt which can be moved back and forth or by a horizontal board which can be slid back and forth so that because of the non-restricted forces, there is a risk of damage to the cervical vertebrae. The tilting of the head to the side, forced on by the device and which is especially unnatural for the sleeping position, inevitably has to lead to interruption of sleep so that. also here, in addition to the risk of damages to the cervical vertebrae, undisturbed sleep cannot be ensured either.
International Application WO 86/03663 describes a mattress which is longitudinally divided into three parts of which the middle one is supported on a tilting board by means of springs. In this case the supine position can only be assumed if the sleeper lies on the middle section exactly above the tilting roll. For each small move of the body sideways with respect to the tilting section support, the tilting board tilts to the side so that the middle section and the adjacent side section, also supported by springs, adopt in cross-section, a V-shaped orientation. If the sleeping person, while in the supine position lies approximately on the joint between the middle section and the side section of the mattress, then these two adjoining sections are buckled into a V-shape so that the mattress by and large has the effect of the infamous "dip" of an old worn mattress. If the snorer is first on his back in the V-shaped buckled joint area between the middle- and side section, then he has no possibility whatsoever to turn himself or be turned by a partner into the snore stopping side position since, due to the effect of the tilting board, the body always has to be moved "up hill". The same disadvantage is attached to the bed design which is known from German Patent 560 715 and which has ,a V-shaped foldable mattress support. From U.S. Pat. No. 3,013,281, German Utility Model 18 37 239, as well as German Offenlegungsschriften (application published without examination) 26 36 746 and 24 08 784 hospital beds are known which essentially have a trough-shaped resting surface and in which the mattresses or the mattress base can be tilted around the longitudinal axis. Such beds serve first to help the nursing personnel when transferring patients, but are also intended to vary the pressure on individual body parts where the body of the patients for medical reasons, e.g. in the case of fractures or the like, may not change position relative to the resting surface due to the tilting. In certain cases, the circulation in bedridden persons is supposed to be aided by rocking motions of the resting surface (German Utility Model 18 37 239 and German Offenlegungsschrift 24 08 784). None of these known beds are suitable for domestic use since in practice these are so-called trough beds which are supposed to secure the lying person in a given position while clearly an essential aspect of a bed for normal residential purposes is that, in use, an unrestricted freedom of movement is provided by a practically uniform resting surface.
This type of bed must also be available to the sleeping person so that the latter also during his sleep should be able to move unrestrictedly into another position, for example turning from the side on to the back and on to the other side.
In summary, it has been found that the devices developed specifically so far to prevent snoring, are unsuitable for daily use. Even if beds are known which are designed with at least parts of the mattress or the mattress base tiltable around the longitudinal axis, they are designed for hospital needs or the care of bedridden persons and are constructed in such a way that their use as normal beds for domestic requirements is not possible and besides, the free movement of a sleeping person in such beds is to a large extent restricted.